Subject: Cross-curricular Competencies of Thinking, Identity and Interdependence, Literacies, and Social Responsibility that will “strengthen and enrich students’ present learning and future lives.” Saskatchewan Education, 1988

Grade: Not applicable (special needs student)

Theme: Social Interactions

Competency Focus: Strategies that can help a student with ASD manage stress levels, and as a result, social interactions

The outcome for this artifact is to see student engagement and introduce vocabulary. It is based on recommendations from a Speech and Language Pathologist for students with Autism. This was part of an Eiip goal. When creating these stories it is important to keep the following suggestions in mind.

· Stories should be created using simple vocabulary and sentences. The stories should also be created using a repetitive format which will lend itself to allow the student to, eventually, fill in blanks in the story by handing picture cards to the reader (e.g., “Peter plays in the snow with ____.”).
· If there is, eventually, an expectation for students to point to individuals in his/her personalized stories (e.g., mom, dad), he/she will need to have separate pictures to be taught who is who in pictures. Begin this process using errorless learning. This means that the student’s finger should be guided to select the right person he/she has been asked to identify in the picture.
· If the student has demonstrated an interest in turning pages in books, it may be beneficial to use ‘page fluffers’ in the personalized stories to make the pages easier for him/her to manipulate and turn. (Joelle Lowen, 2016)
Ideally the student will be able to complete the cloze sentence either by using a picture or saying the word.

When working with children with developmental disabilities, teachers can accomplish a great deal by managing the learning environment proactively to prevent behavior problems and promote learning. But identified students may also experience behavior or learning problems because they lack key skills (e.g., capacity to interact with other children in socially appropriate ways). Children with developmental disabilities should therefore have explicit skills-training in deficit areas as a central component in their curriculum.